5 Conclusion
The combination of factors identified in this paper, in general, leads to the conclusion that decisions relating to the government’s major objectives, including high-level service delivery goals, high-level fiscal goals, decisions regarding key public policy values, trade-offs between different organisations, and broad resource and taxation issues should be allocated close to the centre. In contrast, decisions relating to many of the ways in which those objectives are achieved should be decentralised to those with better information, knowledge and relationships with clients in order to increase participation, customisation and innovation, and flexibility and responsiveness to clients.
Thus, working through the factors outlined in this paper when considering centralising or decentralising decision rights tends to lead to a solution characterised by a “tight/loose” pattern of (de)centralisation. This tight/loose pattern embodies tight or centralised direction and coordination over the major objectives and loose or decentralised discretion and autonomy over many of the ways to achieve them.
This paper has not attempted to rank the common factors in order of importance, as the ranking is likely to differ depending on the particular circumstances. The final solution in any individual case is likely to involve some value judgement between the relative weights of the different factors. However, the paper does suggest that the solution in each case is almost certain to lie in some combination of centralised and decentralised functions and that this combination is likely to be characterised by a tight/loose pattern.
